Helpless
by ChocolateChip-Master
Summary: Orbiting Galra airspace had been Pidge's idea. An intel mission, to gather all of the possible information on the planet before launching an assault. An undercover operation; one that went very wrong very quickly. / Part 1 of my BTHB


**For my Bad Things Happen Bingo project! **

**Anon on Tumblr Requested:**** 'Interrogation' for Keith with protective Pidge and Hunk?**

* * *

Keith's nose smashed into the table.

He let out a shrill cry and Pidge curled her hands into her prison garb, squeezing her eyes shut and trying not to think about the blood that splattered across the cold metal from the impact. Hunk twitched next to her, his fingers moving like he wanted to summon his bayard, but he couldn't. None of them could.

They were entirely _helpless._

A wall of bulletproof glass separated them and Keith. Blood was smeared across his face, matting in his hairline and sticking strands of black hair together. A bruise was swelling on his jaw, his own prison clothing speckled with spots of blood, both dried and fresh. His nose was twisted in a strange angle, and Pidge had a horrible inkling that it was broken.

"I will ask you _one final time," _the Galran across the table sneered, leaning forwards. "How is the Altean Princess still alive?"

Keith leveled a furious gaze at the Galran and spat blood out of his mouth. "Go to hell."

The Galran's face contorted into fury. Hunk flung himself forward as purple claws extended for Keith's face. He slammed his fists against the wall of glass and shrieked Keith's name as if that would somehow stop the Galran.

"_Don't you touch him!" _Hunk roared, authority Pidge had never heard before in every syllable. If the Galran had even heard, he chose to ignore Hunk as he smashed Keith's face forward again. Keith let out another howl of pain which was followed by a sickening _crack, _accented by a splatter of blood from his nose.

Pidge winced. If Keith's nose wasn't broken already, it certainly was now.

Hunk seethed next to her. "We have to do something!"

Pidge wholeheartedly agreed, but she just didn't know _what to do. _Upon being captured, the Galrans had stripped the trio of their armor and bayards and thrown them into a holding cell. Pidge, specifically, was missing all of her tech that would allow her to easily hack through the door and run in guns blazing.

_Think, Pidge. Think._

She glanced around, trying to asses the situation through Keith's pained cries and Hunk's angry breathing next to her. A security camera was nestled in the corner of their holding cell, observing their every movement. The door to the interrogation room was made of heavy metal, a handprint scanner on one side. Unless Pidge and Hunk also held Galra DNA, there was no way they were getting inside.

_Think._

Pidge chewed on her lower lip. She tried not to watch as the interrogator asked Keith another question. And Keith - to his credit with blood all over his nose and face - fixed the interrogator with one of his famous glares and told the Galran to go fuck himself.

The scream that followed as Keith's arm was _twisted _in the Interrogator's grasp made Pidge's stomach churn.

_Start small,_ Pidge thought, glancing down at the manacles that bound her wrists. They weren't high-tech, like the rest of the Galrans bindings were. The outpost they were held at must not have had the same updated technology as the forefront of the Galra force did. A small circular-shaped hole on the underside of Pidge's wrist was the only indication that there was a lock to release the chains.

And where there was a lock, there was a key.

Just not...a _conventional _key.

Pidge inclined her head towards Hunk's to catch his attention. He did, tearing angry eyes from Keith currently being beaten for a particularly snarky answer and glanced at her. Worry creased the anger sewn into his brow and he reached with bound hands to brush her arm gently.

"What is it?"

"Do you have anything small?" She hissed, keeping her voice quiet as to not alert the guards undoubtedly watching through the camera. She had no idea if there was audio or not, but she knew better than to take chances.

Hunk, taking the hint judging by the way his eyes flickered to the camera in the corner for a moment, lowered his own voice as well. "Like what?"

"Something like this," Pidge twisted her wrist awkwardly to point at the small hole on the underside of her cuffs. She mentally thanked the strange mishaps she and Matt would get up to back on Earth; mishaps that would eventually lead them into the wonderful land of _lock-picking._

Hunk pursed his lips, patting down his prison garb. There wouldn't be anything in there - Pidge knew - since the thin clothes didn't even have pockets. Instead, she was more hoping that the pins Hunk used to push his hair aside hadn't been confiscated.

Pidge gestured as subtly as she could manage to her hair. Hunk's expression cleared and he moved as inconspicuous as he could towards his hair, like he was trying to brush aside his bangs. Slowly - ever so slowly - he pulled out a small pin and gripped it in his fist, passing it to Pidge. She slid it from in between her fingers into her own fist and paused for a moment, holding her breath. She prayed they hadn't been caught, and their observers were too fixated on the torture of one of their inmates.

Pidge looked away as Keith's manacles were grabbed and twisted in opposite directions. The Interrogator leaned in close to Keith's face, breathing putrid breath into his face. Keith winced.

"Why were you and your friends orbiting our airspace?" He snarled.

Keith's gaze flickered to the glass for a moment. He knew the answer, of course. They wanted information on the planet in preparation to storm the base the following morning. Pidge had insisted - she thought now with writhing guilt in her stomach - that they didn't need backup and would be back within the hour.

How long had it been now? Were the others getting worried? Did they suspect something had happened?

Keith's silence had earned him two loud _cracks _as his wrists snapped in two. He threw his head back and _screamed _, the sound making both Pidge and Hunk wince. His bones were completely disjointed, hands hanging in a way that they were _not _supposed to. The joint pressed against his skin, creating a sickly-looking bulge in the skin.

Keith let out a high keen of pain. Pidge began to work.

Anger and fear fueling her, she twisted her own wrists to the point where it was painful and stuck Hunk's hairclip into the tiny hole. For a moment, the room was silent, save for the soft clicks of metal and Keith's heavy panting.

Hunk watched Pidge anxiously out of the corner of his eye. Her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth as she worked, judging by sound rather than sight. Her wrists were beginning to ache, but she had a one-track mind at the moment. Getting Keith out of that room and out of this _facility _in one piece was her primary goal.

She sure as hell wasn't going to fail.

Pidge startled when there was a quiet _click _and the manacles around her wrists suddenly became a lot lighter. She let out a quiet breath, looking up at the camera again. Praying sincerely what she was about to do wouldn't jeopardize this whole escape thing, she shook off the manacles and threw them.

They smashed into the camera, crushing it beneath their weight. The metal fell to the floor with a heavy thud and Hunk gawked at Pidge as she began working on his.

"Pidge, how-"

"Matt and I did a lot of weird stuff as kids," she said, pulling the manacles off of Hunk's wrists without waiting for his response. They had maybe five minutes before their observers realized something was wrong, and they needed to be _far _down the hallway by the time that happened. Hunk looked around, pursing his lips and glancing between the manacles in Pidge's hand and the window.

"Hunk?" Pidge asked, a bit wary of what was going on in his head.

Instead of answering, Hunk took his manacles from her, a glint in his eye that made Pidge wish she could read minds. "This glass may be bulletproof, but we'll see how it does against these."

Hunk rolled his arm like a baseball player and reeled back, throwing the manacles as hard as he could. The glass shuddered, cracks spidering from the impact point. Both Keith and the Galran in the interrogation looked up with vastly different expressions. Pidge fixated on Keith's, at the hope spreading across his face, as she got the idea and threw her own pair.

The cracks widened as Pidge struck directly where Hunk had. The Galran narrowed his yellow eyes, dropping Keith from where he held the Red Paladin by his collar and moved closer to the window to inspect the cracks.

_Oh._

Pidge and Hunk exchanged looks.

They were going to make this _hurt._

As one, they threw their manacles again. The glass shattered on impact, striking the Galran directly in the forehead. He let out a loud roar and fell backward, smashing the back of his head against the floor.

He didn't move again.

Pidge clawed her way forward instantly. Hunk was at her side, and together, they began tearing through the shards of glass. Ignoring the glass that dug into her skin and cut away the flesh, Pidge tossed a particularly large piece behind her and wriggled through the opening it provided. Glass cut her exposed arms and legs, but it was nothing that a few bandages and Altean antiseptics could fix.

"Pidge!" Keith gasped nasally as she came through. Blood was smeared across his face, oozing from the broken mess that was his nose. His wrists still hung at an awful angle, and it hurt to look at. She knelt as Hunk came charging through after her, glass shattering as his body landed directly on the Galra interrogator.

He was _definitely _out cold now.

After a few seconds of quick lock-picking, Pidge pulled the manacles as delicately off of Keith's wrists as she could. He hissed in pain as Hunk took the manacles from Keith and examined them.

"Solid weapon," he observed. Pidge nodded in agreement, glancing at Keith as he moved to rub at his wrists which were rubbed raw, but made a face like he regretted it instantly. The protruding bone pressing against his skin _shifted _as he tried to move and Pidge fought down the urge to hurl.

"We're...going to need you to open the door," she told Keith. There was no way he was going to be able to crawl through the window in his state and she hated to cause him more pain then what he had already been through.

Keith bit his lip but nodded regardless, determination hardened his gaze. He moved forward with a heavy limp, a bloody gash torn into his leg. He whimpered in pain as he awkwardly maneuvered himself against the handprint scanner. Hunk moved behind him, offering Keith some sort of stability as the scanner worked.

Finally, an eternity later, the door slid open.

Hunk scooped Keith onto his back instantly. Keith looked so small and fragile, a stark contrast to what he had been before all this. Proud and immovable, like a mountain. Now he had his head buried in Hunk's chest, searching for a semblance of safety. Once they got back to the castle, Pidge was sure the demons of today would never truly leave. But she knew that both she and Hunk would be there for Keith, every step of the way to recovery.

Hunk turned to Pidge, eyes narrowed with resolve to protect, to keep Keith safe no matter the cost. "Let's get out of here."

Pidge nodded in agreement, following Hunk from the room and out into the cold hallways.

They were free. They had gotten out with every part of their family intact.

Now, they were going to go home.

* * *

**Let's goooooooooo! **

**Part one of a...very long series to come is complete! This one was requested by a lovely anon on tumblr who wanted an interrogation scene with Keith, Pidge, and Hunk. I love the dynamic of Pidge and Hunk. Together, they can be super resourceful. **

**Whether or not they made it home is up to interpretation, but I like to think they did. I also like to think that, after Keith got out of a pod, he, Pidge, and Hunk all had a big cuddle pile to comfort each other. **

**Thank you so much for reading! Leave a comment if you did, I'd love to hear your thoughts! **


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